


Sifu

by terajk



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-26
Updated: 2011-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-19 19:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terajk/pseuds/terajk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's nothing fancy about throwing the shuriken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sifu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elwing_alcyone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwing_alcyone/gifts).



Azula isn't doing it right. At  _all._

There's nothing fancy about throwing the shuriken. It's not like slinging fire at people, or pulling lightning out of the sky. People aren't supposed to marvel at how pretty your form is—they're just supposed to be cut in half.

"Like this." Mai...blinks her wrist, a movement she doesn't feel that nobody is supposed to notice. (Why did she agree to this, again?) Azula would probably scoff and say it's like she's pulling away from something, like she's hiding. And it is, which is why Azula keeps doing it wrong.

But Azula doesn't say anything. She just changes her stance, makes herself straighter (like a soldier; Mai's soldier. No), and flicks her wrist.

"Um-hm," says Mai. "Better." She waits for a fancy, fiery death. 

It doesn't come. Why doesn't it come?

When Azula'd first asked for this—well, Azula doesn't ask for things, but whatever—the little hairs on Mai's arms had stood against her blades.  _No, no no no no,_  she'd thought. She had no bending, no armies, no brothers to lord over. But she had her knives, and she wanted to keep them.

"A princess must have many skills," Azula said.

 _No,_  thought Mai.  _You can't have mine._  What she said was: "Fine. I'll show you." She didn't think you could show a person something that wasn't supposed to be seen in the first place. You didn't watch the shuriken—you couldn't, if it were used right—but you could feel it. You felt the whoosh through the air, the thump in trees and (flesh) wooden posts. Mai remembers being in dark alleys, throwing over and over again, making herself smaller and smaller, because it was something to do. It wasn't anything she'd intended to be good at, not really. And here was Azula, a perfect mirror of her own body. Mai never expected she would follow  _her._  Maybe Zuko'd be nervous, if he were here.

A smile, like lightning, flickers over her face.


End file.
